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The Road of Kings

The Road of Kings is © 2004 Conan Properties International LLC. CONAN®, CONAN THE BARBARIAN® and related logos, character, names, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Conan Properties International LLC unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved. Mongoose Publishing Ltd Authorized User. Conan The Roleplaying Game is released under version 1.0 of the Open Game License. Reproduction of non-Open Game Content of this work by any means without the written permission of the pulisher is expressly forbidden. See Page 192 for the text of this license. With the exception of the character creation rules detailing the mechanics of assigning dice roll results to abilities and the advancement of character levels, all game mechanics and statistics (including the game mechanics of all feats, skills, classes, creatures, spells and the combat chapter) are declared open content. Printed in China

Credits 2

Introduction 3

AQUILONIA: The Proudest Kingdom of the World 4

ARGOS: The Maritime Kingdom 14

BORDER KINGDOM: The Haunted Land 18

BRYTHUNIA: The Pastoral Kingdom 25

CIMMERIA: Land of Darkness and Night 32

CORINTHIA: The Land of Mountainous City States 37

GHULIST: The Hairy Hillmenof The Himelians 42

HYPERBOREA: Bleak Plains and Broken Hills 47

HYRKANIA: The Riders of the Steppe 51

IRANISTAN: Land of Gaudy Silks and Spired Helmets 58

KHAURAN: Land of The Queen of Sorrow 62

KHITAI: Land of the Ancients 65

KHORAJA: A Kothic Piece of Shem 69

KOTH: Hub of Overland Trade Routes 71

KUSH and the THE BLACK COAST 75

NEMEDIA: The Dragon Throne 86

NORDHEIM: ASGARD - Home of the Æsir 92

NORDHEIM: VANAHEIM - Homeof the Vanir 95

OPHIR: The Kingdom of Gold 100

PICTISH WILDERNESS: Land of Painted Devils 104

SHEM: The Pastoral Lands 110

STYGIA: The Serpent of the South 121

TURAN: Kingdom of BarbaricSplendour 130

VENDHYA: The Golden Kingdom 139

ZAMORA: Towers of Spider-Haunted Mystery 151

ZINGARA: Land of Chivalry and Conspiracy 157

Other Peoples of the Hyborian Age 164

Notables of the Hyborian Age 168

Games Mastering Conan 180

License 192

Contents

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AuthorVincent Darlage

Editor and Line DevelopmentRichard Neale

Cover ArtChris Quilliams

Map of HyboriaClayton Bunce

Character SheetAlexander Sascha Coyner

Interior ArtistsAlejandro Villen, Andrew Dobell, Chad Sergesketter, Chris Quilliams, Jason Walton, Jesus Barony, Ronald Smith

ProofreadingIan Finch & Mark Quennell

Additional SupportPaul Tucker

PlaytestersMorgan Nash, Chiara Mac Call, Hayden Nash, Adam Taylor, Ian Over, Simon English, Rafael Dei Svaldi, Guilherme Dei Svaldi, Gustavo Emmel, Leonel Caldela, André Mendes Rotta, H Barker, Wesley R. Gassaway, Betty Gassaway, Danny Gordon, Raven Gordon, Michael Dunmire, Vincent Darlage, Bob Probst, Chris Bradley, Craig Pekar, Jason Durall, Mark ‘Neo’ Howe, Mark Billanie, Mark Sizer, Michael J Young, Alan Moore, Jamie Godfrey, Daniel Scothorne, Daniel Haslam, Christy Ward, Jason Ward, Jason Hohler, Kevin French, William Dvorak, Jack Cox, Brent Strickland, Melissa Strickland, Adam Crossingham, Alex Aplin, Paul Evans, David Little, Nick Lowson, Dougal McLachan, Mark Steedman, Sam Vail, Alan Marson, Robert Hall, Trevor Kerslake, André Chabot, Antonio Eleuteri, Emilia Eleuteri, Francesco Cascone, Claudio Mormile, Angelo Mormile, Paul O’Neal, Patrick O’Neal, Chuy Hernandez, Butch Mercado, D’Angelo Ramos, Jay Hafner, Eric D. Schurger, Geissler G. Golding, Brian Fulford, Richard D. Cserep, Jason Waltrip, James Williams, Scott Bradley.

Special ThanksTheodore Bergquist & Fredrik Malmberg at Conan Properties.

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Continuing support for Conan The Roleplaying Game can be found at www.conan.com, www.mongoosepublishing.com and in the pages of Signs and Portents magazine.

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IntroductionWelcome to Hyboria

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Robert E. Howard and the other Conan writers, artists and film makers have woven a fascinating tapestry of wealth, poverty, pitch black evil and epic struggles for life in a world determined to kill even the hardiest. Herein is written the descriptions of this harsh world: proud lands of tarnished civility burning with civil wars; barbaric wildernesses of savage killers hunting with primitive weapons; dreaming kingdoms of dark priests worshipping with bloodied daggers; noble demesnes of arrogant knights fighting with grim determination; ancient realms of haunted towers lurking with baleful menace; towering crags of icy rock slumbering with hidden peoples; and great seas of crimson waves brimming with cruel pirates.

As the Road of Kings takes a traveller through the glittering and decadent realms of the lost Hyborian Age, so too does this tome work toward the same end. These fabled lands of ancient times are the shimmering background of Conan the Roleplaying Game, the gleaming backdrop against which your action is set. These cultures, the grand forbearers of more modern times, are magnificent and degraded all at the same time. Each culture has its dark, rotten core and its flashy exterior, its gilt mask of civility.

It is our world, yet it is not a world any of us would recognise. It is a world that is dimmer than the memory of a fleeting dream, yet is bright as the glowing dimness of a dying ember lying amid the coals of a lost fire. It is a world of the distant past, from a time before our recorded history, a time that is forgotten by us… almost. Much as the ghost of Conan may have stood behind Bob Howard of Texas and told his tales for us to enjoy, the ghosts of that far-flung age may come to us to tell their tales, so we may live them again and thrill to their adventures.

Open up the book of Von Junzt, which lies grim and foreboding in front of you, and read about an age undreamed of by modern science. Open the tome called Nameless Cults, where is written a translation of the Nemedian Chronicles, and read of black eons known to us as the Hyborian Age…

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AQUILONIA The Proudest Kingdom of

the World‘The proudest kingdom of

the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west.’

The Nemedian Chronicles

‘I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you – one

who traced his genealogy for a thousand years. The land

was torn with the wars of the barons, and the people cried out under suppression and taxation. Today no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and the taxes of the people are lighter than anywhere else in the world.’

R. E. Howard, The Scarlet Citadel

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AQUILONIA IS THE most advanced and powerful of the Hyborian kingdoms, with a proud, relatively wealthy populace. Its politics are rife with intrigue, murder and horror, with countless plots and intrigues amidst the barons and counts who maintain ancient feuds from generation to generation. With frontiers that are often tested by Picts, Cimmerians, Nemedians and Ophireans there is opportunity within its borders for warrior and courtier alike.

Nearly twenty five million people live in the various counties, baronies, villages, towns and cities of Aquilonia. Two of the great Hyborian metropolises can be found in Aquilonia: Tarantia and Shamar. King Conan’s census following his great victory in the Year of the Dragon revealed fifty other large towns and cities, nearly three hundred smaller towns and over thirty thousand villages, with almost a half million residents living in innumerable hamlets, thorps or individual farms and homesteads.

Aquilonia represents the pinnacle of Hyborian age society – a realm of enlightenment and prosperity. Even so, its forms of government and its treatment of the various economic classes of people fall back on ancient Hyborian traditions instead of a more efficient form of government. Aquilonia has a feudal government, being ruled by a king, who divides up the land and the responsibilities of the kingdom among various barons and counts, who then subdivide up their properties and responsibilities further. The reigning monarch of Aquilonia is King Conan who took, and has defended, his crown by force of arms.

Aquilonia is an impressively large kingdom, larger even than its king can effectively rule. Without a surfeit of troops

enough to enforce his will everywhere, Aquilonia is left with a fragmented government of local powers, counts

and barons, who perform civil and military functions in the name of the king for an equally fragmented

kingdom subdivided into numerous fiefs and sub-fiefs.

Aquilonia is broken up into provinces, many of which are further subdivided into smaller fiefs or civil territories. Many of these boundaries are poorly defined or in dispute, with the lands near the country’s borders further confused. This is extremely evident in the west, where the Westermarck, which considers itself to be part of Aquilonia, is separated by Gunderland, which does not despite an agreement to the contrary. The divisions tend to undermine the sovereignty of the king and lead to inefficient government by the counts, barons and those subordinate to the upper nobility.

The counts and barons of Aquilonia hold noble titles and fiefs from the king granting them official power. The granting of these fiefs is done by a patent, or contract, wherein the noble swears fealty to the king and the king grants the noble all rights pertaining to the land proffered as fief, including an accompanying title of nobility. These noble titles are inherited through the male line, although the king may remove a title at his pleasure. The eldest son or the husband of an eldest daughter almost always inherits the noble title. The actual property of the fief, however, can be divided among the lord’s heirs as may see fit. If a dispute over inheritance occurs, especially in a case where a nobleman produced no heir, the king may intercede and name an heir.

Unfortunately, the political and military structure of Aquilonia tends to maintain only the illusion of unity beneath the king. The counts and barons frequently can and do ignore the edicts and commands of the king. Although the king rules all of Aquilonia in theory, the true practice of power shows that the king rules Tarantia and its surrounding manors only. Many times in Aquilonia’s history

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AQUILONIA The Proudest Kingdom of

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provinces rebelled and had to be ‘reacquired’ by the king’s force of arms. Aquilonia’s borders swelled and shrank depending on the relative strength of the various kings. King Conan is a strong king, yet even he has had problems with the various provinces, nobles, peoples and manors across his great kingdom. The wars between the nobles, which once were many, are now few. King Conan intercedes as much as he can with barbaric ferocity.

The manor is the economic unit of life in Aquilonia. A manor consists of a manor house and one or more associated villages and acres of land numbering in the thousands. Fully a third of the land is devoted to supporting the noble fief-holder and his retinue. The serfs and peasants who work the land are usually required to spend half their time working the portions set aside for the nobility, but have the rest of the time to work their own lands or to work on special projects, such as building bridges or roads, as required by the local lord.

These local lords maintain their own military, and can nominally be ordered by the king to fight. These military men, knights and chevaliers, have become, over time, their own social class. Many of these quasi-independent units have taken up colourful and well-known names – the imperial troops are the Black Legion and the king’s personal protective knights are known as the Black Dragons. The soldiers of Aquilonia include both powerful cavalry and impressive infantry. Aquilonia appears to be unique in the world in its recognition of the importance of a trained infantry. Most of the infantry are Gundermen, who excel at the spear and poleaxe, and

Bossonian archers, who are without equal in the Hyborian age for bowmanship. In time of national war, King Conan can command hosts in excess of 50,000 troops. Troops in Aquilonia are often signalled via the oliphant, an ornate ivory instrument that a skilled performer can use to imitate everything from the roar of a lion or elephant to the gentle sound of a breeze.

The Aquilonian army favours a standard formation for Hyborian hosts. The centre, heavily armoured knights, is the strongest section. The wings are composed of lesser cavalry units that are supported by pikemen and Bossonian archers. The wings move in advance of the centre. The archers unleash their stinging death and the pikemen and swordsmen move in afterward. The archers lift their aim to fire at the back ranks of the foe so as to avoid killing their own soldiers. The cavalry units move in next, followed by the knights on their immense horses.

The wealthy in Aquilonia dress well. Silken jupons, close-fitting jackets with gilt-braided skirts and jagged sleeves are typical outfits worn in the courts. Hair is usually curled and scented, bound with cloth-of-silver or cloth-of-gold bands. Most nobles wear a sword, though many of them are merely ceremonial weapons. Others wear simple tunics with hose and soft leather boots.

Far below the status of the nobility and the military, beneath even the station

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CreditsIntroductionAQUILONIA The Proudest Kingdom of the WorldARGOS The Maritime KingdomBORDER KINGDOM The Haunted Land BRYTHUNIAThe Pastoral Kingdom CIMMERIA Land of Darkness and Night CORINTHIA The Land of Mountainous City StatesGHULIST The Hairy Hillmen of The HimeliansHYPERBOREA Bleak Plains and Broken Hills HYRKANIAThe Riders of the Steppe IRANISTANLand of Gaudy Silks and Spired Helmets KHAURANLand of The Queen of SorrowKHITAILand of the Ancients KHORAJAA Kothic Piece of ShemKOTHHub of Overland Trade Routes KUSH THE BLACK COASTNEMEDIAThe Dragon ThroneNORDHEIM: ASGARDHome of the ÆsirNORDHEIM: VANAHEIMHome of the VanirOPHIRThe Kingdom of Gold PICTISH WILDERNESS Land of Painted DevilsSHEMThe Pastoral LandsSTYGIAThe Serpent of the SouthTURANKingdom of Barbaric Splendour VENDHYAThe Golden Kingdom ZAMORATowers of Spider-Haunted MysteryZINGARALand of Chivalry and Conspiracy Other Peoples of the Hyborian AgeNotables of the Hyborian AgeGames Mastering Conan